Monday, June 30, 2008

Today I cleaned out the cabinet under the sink so my cat can kill the mouse that periodically shows its flash of fur while scuttling from the stove to the refrigerator.

I had been storing the toolbox and detergents, plaster spatulas, screwbags and Allen wrench anti-matter in the cabinet the mouse uses to portal from behind the wall to my kitchen, the pilfer labyrinth.

Y si no es fast enough Calvino, or is intimidated by the vermin growl of the mouse, inaudible to us but surely a decibel affair for them?

Y si the mouse is an emissary of peace, a relative of mine or the cat's, here to deliver a message on apocryphal f.m.

Basta ya de boludeces y de entredientes postizos.

La poesia es pobre exterminador, pero la poesia es un host, a victim de circumstancias y fracasos. It is very simple: cats like to eat mice although they don't always eat them; sometimes, their teeth banter before with the mouseloam.

And they never tell you what to do with the carcass, as your cat gargles the sordid morsel abalone? They always leave that snipet past pertinent.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Unemployed in Harlem sounds worse than Jobless in NYC.Furthermore, Eternal Student in Neutral sounds more like a lifestylethan Deficiency in Volition.Grab Ass at Work just sounds wrong but imagine what it sounds like fromthe portable where teachers are having desk-sex, or inside the labs wherethere are Black, Marble Slabs.And, Ambulatory Bootleg Agent is not more polite than Chinese DVD Lady on the 2 Express.Is no where near the insensitivity of Mexican Mango Mujer or Dominican Gypsy Cabstronaut.Skateboard Kids, call them Pointless Loiter Sports for they choose to vultureand shave concrete when there are Proper Obligations to Delegate.Graffitists are always on Operation Guerilla Handle because I would too if Icould write my name all day.Bohemians surrender a portion of their face to Daddy, Inc. sounds mean althoughEntitlement is a Real Disease.Alas, the sound of something respectable is often more than pause solemn additive;it is soundsmore and the Landscape of Propriety Holding Court.The Galloping Kitten is the deal, tambourining down the hall eight minutesfrom midnight--you can't mistake that nuisance--but it is also Kitten Entertained by Plastic Milk Corkscrew.Likewise, we could say the Shameless Interpreter but might only mean that boostingTime Magazines from the Children's Center Lobby is Automatic Blunder on Auto-Throttle.The reality is Onanism is direct descendent of Euphamism and that the ranges of mountains are still churning Earth even though Solipsism is the sharpest drill, it is also enchantingly easy.Euphamism for no one I say sounds almost Robespierrian like you are running towardsthe guillotine, like there is terror in your cause, as if you were explaining to a dolt the Pillars of the Pillock.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Cura: Immensity exists whether or notI am on board with the heft of its existence;immensity is a sovereign trench, a follicle in a mane,infinte granules.

Cura, you are always carrying on about your hairas if it were the epicenter of your planetoid.

Cura: Hair is a supernova bouquet made fromthe left-overs of the implosion of the sun,the filaments of a system aggregate which readsyour features much as we read the magnetosphere.

Cura, have you ever been incarcerated?

Cura: The one time I was in jail I turned myselfin at the Fordham Police Station to avoid a warrant.When I say jail I mean the interrogation room I was heldin for four hours while they ran me for priors, which theydid as a courtesy because I was a high-school teacher.

Cura, why didn't you have kids with your ex-wife?

Cura: Love is all about valence, sometimes, your chargesare not only like, but unanimous in outcome; and, sometimesyou drag yourself to therapy because the co-pay is nominaland you are looking for someone to make you say the obvious.

Cura, how can you smoke knowing what we know about smoking?

Cura: My ancestors were heathens of tobacco and coffee adulants;their eyes were cannabis-green so they dazzled dull sobriquetsinto descriptive handles; moreover, overcoming dependenceon the nicotine patch is only theoretically easier than overcomingthe dependence on the nicotine in cigarettes.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

leaves pants in fireman-puddlesdrinks all of Cochina's popdrags me to Korean horror moviesshoots his dictator finger off at youchooses not to cut his damn haireven though he looks like Jacksonsmokes tobacco like an injunforgets to give Calvino his vitaminsdrives like fugitive cabbie from Dakardances like a slow cock, I mean, clockfollowed by the receipts of degreesmanifestos at the drop of a cockadecan not keep steady finances or jobeats these repellant turkeryburgerswears the same clothes during the weekcan not program his sophisticated mobilemakes you sit through same stories over and overtakes the bus for subway dutytakes the cat to the park to prompt larksjumps on beds in the Sleepy'stalks up the librarian for sportbuys fruit from Turkman with Ike coiffureplops down by the ac and gears up loinsdenies the downsize of our vigor,in a loincloth or flagmug or freedomragpurees the verbs of bygone era in pejorative sleevenighthawks from the turret of your chambredispatches legions of resumes, cover letter platoonsplaces one too many stamps for domestic, grounddrives to Key West for poonani with Lucianohas father ranked satrap of billiards, other entretempsplays soccer like bishops wield miterswalks with eyes glued to the sake of scrapes

Monday, June 9, 2008

you run errands all dayspace out yr cigarettespush grandma cart to pharmacywithstand Polish refurbisherspowersawing through old woodfeed yr cat the special grueltake out all the garbage bagsoveruse the library's materialschafe yr thighs in the Martian heatscan the magazines for contemporarieswriters that may have done you dirtyall your mugs become ashtraysbc you threw out the ashtraywhen you quit smoking againyou walk yr girl to the stationkiss her in the neck beforeshe descends the crumbling stairsyou flex to the gym around noonand batter yr soccer ballbc the ballers came after twoyou send resumes to the listingsfor jobs you could do if you could do ifyou did what the cover letter saysyou mongrel around on a short leashpicking up exotic pennies and stampstake copious notes on yr interpreting businessyou wait for the call from dispatchfor the refugees of the Grand Concourseyou ask yr sister if she needs companyto the drop-off bc that scumbag photogmight try to grab his lense beforehanding off the loot that he owes youyou check your e-mail constant bcthey might have written while youwere trolling for porno nouggat.

"Compound Memorandum" by James Foley, Illustrated by Chaz Folgar

My Blogged Rating

Teacher in Bronx Looses Shit, Eats Bathroom Pass

Would You Like A Copy of Yago Cura's "Rubberroom?"

If you would like a copy of Yago Cura's Rubberroom, you can purchase one online through the print-on-demand platform at MagCloud. Please click here to access a free digital copy for your e-readers.

The Rubberroom is a colletion of poetry about the reassigment centers that NYC's Department of Education uses to administratively punish teachers that have been arrested or accused of committing a crime.

Yago spent two weeks there in 2004 but was helped along by various people who saw that a wrong was being committed. But, he was extremely lucky; supposedly, there are teachers who have been at these reassignment centers, or Rubberrooms, for years.

Yago's Rubberroom is a cycle of poems written like a play. The plot is driven by acts and scenes and there is one narrator that monologues his way to understanding the motives behind the actions that landed him in the Rubberroom.

Yago's Rubberroom has been passed around public high schools in the Bronx by first year teachers, administrators, and haggard veterans since 2005. In addition, Yago addressed the 2005 and 2006 class of NYC Teaching Fellows at Lehman College, and his story comprises the much larger story titled "Human Resources" that aired on This American Life in February of 2008.

Spicaresque

The title of this web blog is a neologism created by Yago S. Cura: a compound of the derogatory word for Latinos, "spic," and the Spanish literary tradition, "Picaresque," from which the modern novel descends.
Yago's poetry has appeared in Lungfull!, Borderlands, COMBO, LIT, U.S. Latino Review, PALABRA, Exquisite Corpse, Field, Slope, and The New Orleans Review. Yago's reviews have appeared in The St. Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter.
In 2008, Yago was one of many narrators of the "Human Resources" episode of National Public Radio's "This American Life" that highlighted the NYC/DOE's gulag for alleged-against teachers: the Rubberroom.
Yago's poetry manuscript, Spicaresque, was a finalist in the National Poetry Series and the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize.

Spicaresque Slide Show

Porque are you afraid de Spanglish?

"Nothing seems to inflame advocates of our nation's Anglo-Saxon traditions so much as this issue of language. Since a people's culture--it's music, literature, and customs--is invevitably expressed through its language, the growth of 'foreign' language use somehow implied the growth of foreign cultures. Since 1990, for instance, more than 32 million American spoke English as a second language, a phenomenal one-third increase over 1980, and for more than half of those 32 million, Spanish was the primary tongue"